PMC administration is grilled for poor approach to unsafe structures

PUNE, Nov 23: The Pune civic administration was today grilled by the elected councillors over its lackadaisical approach to the problem of u...

PUNE, Nov 23: The Pune civic administration was today grilled by the elected councillors over its lackadaisical approach to the problem of unsafe structures. They charged the PMC building department with turning a Nelson8217;s eye to the issue. Municipal Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal however assured the house today to finalise a policy decision within a month.

The issue was raised by senior BJP corporator Vijay Kale who pointed out that despite the PMC listing 6,303 dilapidated structures as unsafe, way back in the 80s, the civic administration had taken no measures as per the guidelines of the Sharad Dighe committee report which had recommended granting of additional floor space index for buildings in congested areas where the tenement density was high and rehabilitating the affected in transit shelters.

City engineer Madhav Harihar repeatedly pointed out that every year before the onset of monsoon a survey was carried out by the administration to assess the unsafe nature of the structures. If certain portions of building are in imminent danger of collapsing, they are arbitrarily razed down while in other cases notices are issued to the concerned parties to evict the building, he said.

Harihar however said that the administration did not have enough machinery to handle the actual assessment of whether the buildings were built as per the design calculation and whether they would stand the test of time. He admitted however that after the Department of Town Planning had conducted the survey in 1982 for the draft development plan, no detailed survey had been carried out regarding the list of unsafe houses.

BJP corporators Suhas Kulkarni, Vikas Mathkari, Ujwal Keskar and Balasaheb Mokate pursued the matter and charged the PMC building department for totally neglecting the issue, specially in the wake of collapse of the building at Thane. While Kale argued that the PMC had not bothered to submit its report on the recommendations of the Dighe committee report, Keskar also pointed out the loopholes in the administration8217;s functioning as it allegedly had not served notices to the landlords as per Section 265 of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act who had failed to carry out repairs at the buildings.